Altruist names former Pixar, Blend exec as new CFO

There may not be an obvious connection between animated films and wealth management, but Marc Greenberg sees creativity and innovation as two sides of the same coin.

Over 16 years at Pixar, where Greenberg worked in finance and strategy leadership, he saw firsthand how the popular studio adapted and thrived through changes, such as the acquisition by Disney and disruption to home video. Now Greenberg is hoping to bring some of that experience to Altruist, which hired him as the company’s new chief financial officer, as the startup looks to disrupt the market for independent advisor custodians.

“The CFO part of a company is a really important part of the process,” Greenberg said. “What I’ve seen on the creative front is super relevant to the innovating front.”

Greenberg’s appointment comes at a time of rapid growth for Altruist. The Los Angeles-based company tripled its assets under management and achieved 1,700% year-over-year growth in 2022. In March, Altruist cut ties with Apex Fintech Solutions in favor of launching its own custody and clearing platform, and brought 1,600 RIAs aboard by acquiring Shareholders Services Group.

In April, the company announced a $112 million round of funding, bringing its total amount raised to $290 million.

“As we scale, it’s essential that we’re assembling a leadership team with the powerful combination of day-to-day operational excellence and the ability to think in decades,” Jason Wenk, founder and CEO of Altruist, said in a statement. “Marc fits that bill perfectly.”

While Pixar is an instantly recognizable company on his resumé, it’s Greenberg’s most recent experience at Blend, a white-label fintech that banks use to build consumer-facing digital products, that might be even more attractive to Altruist.

As Altruist is trying to do for RIA custody, Blend brought much-needed innovation to banking, Greenberg said.

“[Blend was] an innovator and growth play in a business that hasn’t had a ton of innovation in the last 10 or 20 years,” he said.

As CFO, Greenberg oversaw Blend as it grew from 300 employees to 2,000, surpassed $300 million in annual revenue, and did an initial public offering in 2021.

At Altruist, “we’re not talking about IPOs or anything like that,” Greenberg told InvestmentNews. Rather, his role will be to support the company infrastructure to grow, achieve profitability and “foster innovation in a meaningful and compelling way.”

Growing Altruist’s workforce be a key part of his role, the importance of which he learned from his days at Pixar.

“If you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they’ll either fix that idea or pick a new one,” Greenberg said, paraphrasing “Creativity, Inc,” the 2014 book written by Pixar co-founder Edwin Catmull. “Give a great idea to a mediocre team, and they’re inevitably going to screw it up.”

The company claims it is on track to achieve profitability in the coming months, but is it really capable of challenging market leaders like BNY Mellon Pershing, Fidelity Institutional and Charles Schwab Advisor Services?

“I don’t know why not,” Greenberg said. “I think we can and that’s why I joined.”